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Meg Eslinger
Comm 3610
Final Story Draft 1
December 2 , 2020
Covid-19 An Unwanted Wedding Guest
CHATTANOOGA, TN (mocsnews.com)- A bride’s wedding day is a day they look forward to their whole lives, adding an unwanted pandemic makes the wedding planning process all the more challenging. Chattanooga is a hub for the wedding industry from the variety of vendors, scenic views, and venues popping up all over the city. With Covid-19 entering the 2020 wedding year, thousands of Chattanooga brides had to either cancel, postpone, or faced uneasy challenges in their wedding planning.
Planning a wedding is hard and stressful work as is, and Covid-19 is icing on the cake to make things more complex for a bride. After interviewing three different Chattanooga area brides, they provided different perspectives to being a bride during Covid along with advice to brides who are going through similar things.
“The most challenging thing for me as a bride was coming to terms with the fact that not everyone, I wanted to come would be able to come because of Covid,”, said Lexie King, recent Chattanooga bride. “I wasn’t going to wait any longer to have my wedding.”
Deciding whether to postpone one’s wedding or to stick with the original date and take precautions is a difficult decision for a bride. You have to consider your budget, guest list, and vendor availability. As we see changes to this pandemic, brides had to become more flexible with their wedding plans.
“Two major changes we had to adapt to was our catering and the way we structured our ceremony from our original plan,” Said, Bride Kaila Dotson. “We changed our food from buffet to serving food.” We also changed our ceremony from an indoor ceremony to outside.”
Another challenging aspect to being a Covid bride is having access for their dress fittings, which is an essential part to the bride to be journey.
“For me, when the businesses were shut down in Chattanooga, my bridal shop was closed down during an important fitting for alterations and it got delayed which was really stressful,” bride Hannah Whitfield said. “It bumped back my fitting schedule, which wasn’t helpful to my dress designer or me quickly approaching our wedding date.”
Now to step away from the negative way’s brides have been affected by Covid this year and focus on the positives. Just like many things in life, if you look hard enough, there’s a silver lining. A huge advantage in Covid brides who are now married, is that they can provide encouragement, and advice to future brides, and current brides going through the same challenges they went through.
“Don’t sweat the small stuff from the planning process to your wedding day itself”, said bride, said Dotson. “Everything will happen the way it’s supposed to, the day goes by so fast so make sue and soak in the day and appreciate it.”
The Coronavirus has stripped what was supposed to be the most special day of many bride’s lives, but brides all over the world have come to terms with this new normal.
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